As with all great cities, there is a certain snobbery Londoners acquire about some of the greatest parts of their own city. We admit with a wry smile that we haven’t visited half its big attractions, dismissing them as too touristy. God forbid that a Londoner should spend an afternoon exploring the Tower of London, a New Yorker visit the Empire State Building or a Parisien go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Yet all the great sites of the world, from the Uffizi to the Sagrada Familia draw people from far and wide for very good reason.
A peculiar side effect of this is that restaurants and bars in these places can also end up appealing most to visitors. I suspect one such place is Fenchurch at the Skygarden – the public garden at the top of the the “Walkie Talkie” building on Fenchurch Street. It has magnificent views, beautiful planting and an excellent cocktail bar. And therefore must be left to tourists and the bridge and tunnel crowd. You figure it out.
Because the toursits are on to something, as Fenchurch at the Skygarden is also the they also have an exceptional restaurant on the upper level called Fenchurch, hosting the talent of head chef Kerth Gumbs. British, of Anguillan heritage, Gumbs’ cuisine brings notes of the Caribbean to a menu that attempts and succeeds in creating dishes that are both delicious and unlike anything you are likely to have eaten before.
We tried the reasonably priced tasting menu – £95 per head, with wine and cocktail pairings available. After some very welcome nibbles (including great curried haddock and sourdough) we started the menu proper with a Johnny Cake of picked crab, scotch bonnet mayo & roe. A Johnny Cake is a cake made from an unleavened mix of cornmeal, salt, and water, and was for a long time a breakfast staple on the east coast of the Americas from the Caribbean to Maine. So quite an appropriate dish to have to kick off a lengthy meal, particularly as the seafood and spice creates a dissonance between what your eyes see and your taste buds encounter. Something is coming but not what you think.
Next was a dish of Fungi and Salt Fish, with octopus, gungo peas, okra, cornmeal. Classical techniques underpinned a theatrical, properly fishy dish but which again surprised with elements of the South and the Caribbean pushing through when least expected. Roast Scallop with textures of cauliflower and roasted chicken butter sauce was perhaps the most classically conventional of the dishes, and showed the pedigree and technical skill of the kitchen, which then led on to my favourite dish – aged duck with tamarind, turnip and sorrel, and I write that as someone who is not normally a fan of duck.
The genius of this dish was tamarind – the fruit flavour of which referenced both the European tradition of matching duck with fruit and the wide Caribbean use of Tamarind fruit (which is really an African tree rather than a native Indian one as widely assumed). It transported me back to one of my all time favourite meals – a freshly caught (by me) Mahi Mahi grilled with tamarind. Truly a flavour of the Caribbean.
The pudding was a superb conkie dumpling inspired Le Ducana cake, but before that came a pre-desert dish of soursop & pink peppercorn whiskey gummy bears. Yes, soursop & pink peppercorn whiskey gummy bears. Yes, you know you want to try them.
What is more difficult to capture is the theatricality of the whole experience, with dishes presented in unexpected ways and charming staff set on making everyone enjoy a special and different evening.
In short, the food is very, very good, the venue luxurious and with spectacular views. Why on earth would we leave this gem to the tourists?
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